response re- neufeld to tingling 7 25 12

7/31/2019 Response Re- Neufeld to Tingling 7 25 12

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/response-re-neufeld-to-tingling-7-25-12 1/3

July 26, 2012By Fax and by mail

Justice Milton A. Tingling Jr.

SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

COUNTY OF NEW YORK 60 Centre Street, Room 512 New York, New York 10007

Re: Dua et al v NYC Department of Parks 110344/2010

Index # 110344/2010

Dear Justice Tingling,

I write in response to a letter dated 7/25/2012 from Cheryl Neufeld, senior counsel for the

City defendants in the Dua case. I apologize for any procedural errors or omissions in myRequest To Intervene. I am making this request pro se and under considerable time restraints.

If you should decide to not accept it as a request to intervene, I ask that you allow it to beentered as an amicus brief.

I note the following points in response to Ms. Neufeld’s letter.

1. My request to intervene was unopposed by the Dua plaintiffs’ counsel.

Only the City is opposing my affidavit being entered in the lawsuit. Additionally, in her letter

Ms. Neufeld did not dispute a single factual point raised in my affidavit.

2. Contrary to Ms. Neufeld’s assertions, the Lederman lawsuit is significantly different

from the Dua lawsuit.

While my Federal lawsuit before Judge Sullivan generally opposes the same Park regulations,

it does so on numerous different grounds, with much different evidence, and I believe, with asignificantly different intended outcome. Among the differences between the two cases:

a. Only the Dua case claims the Park rules discriminate against women, the elderly and the

infirm and that the rules violate the State Human Rights Laws. b. Only the Dua case claims that “first come, first served” is unconstitutional.

c. Only the Dua case claims that PEP officers having artists line up in the order they arrived atthe park when they arrive before 6AM (when the medallion spots officially open) violates

artists’ rights.d. Only the Dua case claims that the rules force plaintiffs into a “survival of the fittest”

struggle with other artists over vending spots.

Additionally, in contrast to the Dua lawsuit I am suing the Parks Commissioner as anindividual for targeting me for false arrest; and the Commissioner and the Parks Department



for conspiring with the Mayor, other top City officials and Park Conservancies to eliminateartists from Parks and replace them with Parks Department vending stands and corporate

concessions. My lawsuit contains a great deal of evidence to back up those claims, little if anyof which is included in the Dua lawsuit.

3. I have a legitimate interest in intervening on behalf of all street artists.

For 19 years I have been the President of the street artist advocacy group, A.R.T.I.S.T. which

has approximately 2,000 subscribed members. I was a lead plaintiff, in Bery/Lederman et al vCity of NY and in Lederman et al v Giuliani, the lawsuits that established artists’ vending

rights in NYC Parks. In the course of a typical year hundreds of artists contact me seekinginformation on the GVL and Park regulations concerning artists. This information is virtually

unobtainable from the City. City officials including Parks Department, NYPD and DCAemployees have routinely directed artists to my website or to me personally for information

on park vending issues. Previous to filing their lawsuit, some of the Dua plaintiffs alsoconsulted me about Park enforcement issues. Ironically, in a 3/27/10 NY1 news interview, the

Park Commissioner nonsensically claimed I was the actual source for the revised Park rules.

Many of the Dua plaintiffs were members of A.R.T.I.S.T. previous to signing a retainer withPhillips Nizer. I have emails going back years from a number of them thanking me for

fighting so hard for their rights. Those emails continued until they signed a retainer and their lawyers forbid them to communicate with me. From conversations and emails between the

Dua plaintiffs and me previous to either lawsuit being filed, it became clear that they had beenconvinced by their lawyers to take a very different strategy in their lawsuit; one that is

significantly dissimilar in its view of artists’ rights, public space, art vendors and free speech.

In particular, their attorneys indicated to me from our first encounter that their purpose was to

effect a result somewhere between what artists want and what the City wants. Previous totheir lawsuit being filed in State Court I was told by Dua plaintiffs that their attorneys haddescribed this agenda as, “Something for the artists and something for the City.” I believe this

could be the reason the Dua attorneys have not used the compelling evidence I have offeredthem, and it is exactly why I am now attempting to intervene on behalf of the Dua plaintiffs.

4. Despite Ms. Neufeld’s claim to the contrary, I requested to intervene in a timely way.

Ms. Neufeld suggests that there is a lack of timeliness in my making this request; that I should

have intervened at a much earlier date. My Federal lawsuit was filed on 6/18/11. The Duacase was filed in State Court on 8/4/11. I assumed that my lawsuit would be decided before

the Dua case. Intervening did not seem necessary at the time.

Hearing Ms. Neufeld’s 7/20/2012 testimony before Judge Sullivan about the sudden change tothe enforcement of the rules concerning performers, which she alleges was solely due to the

Skyline ruling, preceded my intervention. I knew that you were in the process of consideringSummary Judgment and realized that the City would make the very same questionable

arguments before you, and that they might be left unchallenged.



Additionally, her repeated statements to Judge Sullivan supporting the City’s false claimabout there being 28,000 acres of alternate venue in NYC Parks; her insistence that the NYPD

had, “Parked on one medallion spot in Union Sq Park on only one occasion,” (PEP Inspector Robert Reeves testified it was an ongoing problem and we have photos and videos from many

different days documenting this); her objectively false claim that there were no rules in effect

pre-June 2010 that the Parks Department could use to do enforcement against artists; her patently false claims about the City passing these rules to protect Park aesthetics and her unsupported claim that the number of artists (rather than illegal vendors) in Parks had tripled

since 2001…among many other questionable assertions…led me to finally intervene.

In terms of the timing of my request, much of the City’s gross misconduct in misrepresenting basic facts about the Parks rules, the enforcement of those rules and their reasons for changing

those rules only came to light very recently, as described in my affidavit. In particular, theentire issue of the Skyline ruling and of the City suspending enforcement of the rules against

performers was the point at which I asked to intervene. These facts only became known to merecently, and as you will recall, I immediately wrote to you describing them on 5/14/12.

As noted in the cover letter to my affidavit, I have been sharing the evidence in my lawsuit

with the Dua lawyers since long before their lawsuit was ever filed. From their legal motionsand the fact that they conducted no depositions of City officials I see little reason to expect

that they will use any of that material in opposing Summary Judgment. In particular, the issueof the suspension of enforcement against performers, quite apart from why the City is doing it

or exactly when they decided to do it, directly impacts the issue of deciding SummaryJudgment. Were the attorneys for the Dua plaintiffs to not even mention this issue in their

motion, and for you to then rule against them, would be a great miscarriage of justice.

My actions are in defense of the rights of all NYC street artists including the Dua plaintiffs

themselves. I urge your honor to allow my intervention and to consider the evidence of theCity’s misconduct that I have submitted to you in my affidavit.

Respectfully,Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T.

49B Hasting AveRutherford, NJ 07070

201 [email protected]

c.c. by email

Sheryl [email protected]

Jon Brooks [email protected]

Kevin [email protected]

Jeffrey Shore [email protected]

response re- neufeld to tingling 7 25 12

Documents